I wouldn't worry about it. It seems minuscule. Don't alot of cities just pump raw sewage and other stuff straight into the water? What is a couple liveaboards going to do? I mean. You're downriver from Philadelphia, Trenton and Camden. I doubt the water is sparkling. It would probably kill you to fall overboard, that liveaboards turd floating by is just the icing on the cake. I would bet money that 90% of liveaboards just dump and pump, and 50% of everyone else. I was in the marina in Honolulu for a while and I don't think they even have a pump out station.

People in Canada told me most places you are expected to dump it over the side.

If you're in a marina and still using your boat's toilet you're pretty disgusting.

the combined systems that Philly and NY have no choice but to dump raw water during times of extreme storms. A small thunderstorm will not do it, but when you have millions of gallons of water flowing into the system through all the storm drains, you simply cannot process it.

Is it right, no. But to individually plumb the storm drains away from the sewerage would be a major undertaking that would see most of the city streets torn up to replace pipes that were laid a century ago.

The continual problem with these issues is that people always seem to want to line up like we were going to begin a rugby match and your team must win.

There is still municipal dumping and many treatment plants only remove a percentage of organic matter, so are effectively dumping the rest everyday, rain or no rain. Around here it is effectively hundreds of thousands of gallon per day, every day. By in large, this is the cause of poor water quality, not boaters. However, boaters can't dump in confined areas either, such as harbors, and not impact that localized environment. They could most certainly dump in the middle of Naraggansett Bay and have zero impact. I even believe that the more intelligent tree huggers understand that. They just write laws that both make it easier to administer and make their supporters feel really good. Ban it all, they cry out, like a sports team pep talk! That doesn't mean the science supports it.

so sir, those with a difference of perspective or who have first hand knowledge are the problem?

Just for the record, I don't condone dumping sewage overboard, but to prohibit dumping of electric/self contained systems that treat better than the shoreside stations, as the EPA has done, is ludicrous. Yet their rules are based on 20-25 year old technology, but no one cares.

Some of you even think that dumping tap water or chlorinated water is harmful to the "flora/fauna" of the bay. I disagree, but that does not make me the "problem"

There are a lot of solutions to this, and just because some of us don't agree or believe your's is best...does not mean we are the "problem".

Give it a rest, you blaming us makes a ton of assumptions about people you don't even know...and you know what they say about assuming?

...to prohibit dumping of electric/self contained systems that treat better than the shoreside stations, as the EPA has done, is ludicrous...

Please show me the data that shows that self contained systems treat better than the shoreside stations. I am not saying this is untrue, it's just that I've never seen the data. So since you made this statement without assuming, please share the data with me. I really would like to see it.

Please show me the data that shows that self contained systems treat better than the shoreside stations. I am not saying this is untrue, it's just that I've never seen the data. So since you made this statement without assuming, please share the data with me. I really would like to see it.

almost all of the research (australia has reams of data, (that we(actually the EPA) refuse to look at) indicates that the systems treat to a much higher point than the shoreside systems. This is the latest from EPA, however it is still based on 20 year old data....and the EPA has yet to "approve" it.

This is but one example, others are out there, you can look for yourself. Several of the boat mags published a report about NDZ, and lectraXXXX systems a few years ago. Once again the science was shelved in favor of do something/feel good legislation.

And then there is the sell out by the CBF and Wonderful Will Baker, that kicks the whole clean up the bay down the road for another decade or more. They had the gov't where they needed to be, and then negotiated their release.

State environmental officials and local health officials have been notified of the spill, and signs have been posted warning people to avoid the area.

More than 44,000 gallons of sewage spilled near Goucher College in Towson before crews stopped the overflow Monday, Baltimore County public works officials say.

On Aug. 27, allowed about 100 million gallons of sewage to flow into the Patapsco River—the largest sewage spill since at least 2005.

Jenn Aiosa, Maryland senior scientist at Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said that over the long term, the impact of the sewage flows on the Bay is less significant than the contamination from runoff, streams and groundwater that occurs across the Chesapeake watershed on a daily basis.

“Any time one hears about millions of spilled sewage, it is not a good thing. But it creates a problem of perception versus reality,” Aiosa said. “We need people to be concerned about their water on a routine basis.”

So we routinely have spills in the thousands, hundreds of thousands, and millions of gallons and it is no big deal and not a major factor but some boat someplace sending 10 or 20 or 30 gallons over is a major disaster

* Ever since I was about 5 years old, we were taught to never do #2 in the marina because it is really gross and dumping a TANK instead of one head use is way worse. Not excusing anyone that does that, but the overall holding tank effort is 99% feel-good-look-at-us-doing-something while the real expensive $$$ issues go on and on and on

"The city and Baltimore County are bound under consent decrees with state and federal regulators to halt their sewage overflows or face stiff fines. Officials say they are making progress, but the city has reported more than 360 overflows this year, spilling more than 10 million gallons of untreated wastewater into area waters. Baltimore County has tallied 148 overflows that dumped nearly 152 million gallons — two-thirds of it in a spill after a large sewer pipe blew out during Hurricane Irene in August.”

-- December 10, 2011|By Timothy B. Wheeler, The Baltimore Sun

That is 162 million gallons of raw sewage put into the Bay just from Baltimore and Baltimore County in 2011. Much of that “raw” sewage was certainly watered down by high rainfall amounts, but this is only the reported spills. It does not take into account the leaky sewers this article is about. How much sewage leaks into the Bay is unreported? And what about faulty septic systems on the Eastern Shore, or overflow sewage from the Potomac, Susquehanna and James Rivers? If we figure that 162 million gallons is only half the amount of sewage directly discharged, then we are looking at over 300 million gallons a year. That a lot – even for the Bay which contains roughly 1.7 trillion gallons of water.

Am I advocating pooping into the water around a marina? Absolutely not. But it is silly to think recreational boaters are the main source of sewage in the bay.

The moral of this story: The Chesapeake Bay is nasty. Boaters justify dumping their sewage overboard because the neighboring municipalities are already dumping so much that no one will notice the difference.

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